


The Choices of Master Samwise

by LeastExpected_Archivist



Series: Remembrance [7]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-04
Updated: 2002-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeastExpected_Archivist/pseuds/LeastExpected_Archivist
Summary: by UluithielSam recalls the past and muses about choices
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Series: Remembrance [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922128
Kudos: 3
Collections: Least Expected





	The Choices of Master Samwise

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Amy Fortuna, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Least Expected](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Least_Expected), which has been offline since 2002. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Least Expected collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/leastexpected/profile).
> 
> Disclaimer: No, he's not mine; I am his. The words are his too, but they came out of my fingers.
> 
> Story Notes: What an experience! speaking in 1st-person Sam! More like channeling than writing

> "I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no." _The Two Towers_ p 260

You're still out when I return to our chamber. It's just as well. Legolas will look after you, and I've much thinking to do. . . .

* * *

There has never been anyone for me but you. I belonged to you from the moment I saw you -- mayhaps before. I remember thinking, when I heard your parents were drownded the same year I was born, that that's what my job was -- to keep you from being alone.

I just didn't find out it was my job until I was nine years old.

My Gaffer had told me there would be a new Mr. Baggins moving in up at Bag End: "Mr. Frodo Baggins, that will be, Sam," he said. "Mr. Bilbo's cousin he is, and Mr. Bilbo has adopted him. He's rather a queer one, bein' raised off in Buckland and around them Tooks, but a Baggins just the same, and Gamgees look after Bagginses."

I remember like it was yesterday. I was trimming a primrose bush when a shadow moved over the grass. When I looked up all I could think was that the shadow had fallen because the Sun had been outshone. I saw red and golden sparkles coming off your black curls. And your eyes -- your eyes were brighter than July sunshine, than a harvest moon.

I could only gape up stupidly. I must have looked quite daft, but you smiled. And then I knew what brightness really was.

"Hello," you said, "I'm Frodo Baggins. You'd be Samwise, wouldn't you? The Gaffer's youngest son?"

I couldn't speak. You knew my name! I couldn't breathe. I finally stammered out some fool thing, but it made you smile again and that undid me completely.

Do you remember that day? Probably not. You were just meeting the gardener's son. I was meeting my life.

I didn't know at the time what I was feeling, of course. I was only a little lad, and the longing your eyes had opened in my heart had not yet burned its way down into my loins. But that followed as the years passed.

You seemed to favor me, to want to be around me. I didn't stop to wonder why. Seeds sprout, rain falls, sun shines -- who questions a miracle? I neglected my chores at home to spend time at Bag End, and walking the Shire, and sitting in the grass, just being with you. My Gaffer never complained. I wonder, now, if he knew what was happening to me. We never spoke of it, not direct-like, though he said to me many times, "Sam, Gamgees look after Bagginses -- and it looks as if you've found your Baggins to look after." I would blush and gulp and he would just smile.

I had my tumbles with the Hobbiton lasses -- and lads, truth to tell -- so I learned about what bodies could do and the fun that could be had. It never amounted to much, just foolish games, but I always suspected that it could be more.

I didn't learn what bodies can _really_ do until Rivendell.

If Gandalf hadn't picked me to go with you I would have followed you like a calf after its mother, so it's just as well he did. Ah Frodo, if I had not been there, under your window that afternoon, would you have slipped away without me? You tried to, my Frodo. You tried and tried to slip away from me.

You almost did slip away from me, that night at Weathertop.

During the terrible journey from Weathertop to Rivendell all I could think, over and over, was "He's going to die and you've never kissed him. You're a fool, Samwise Gamgee. Your Gaffer didn't know the half of it. If he lives. . . if ever he smiles at you again . . ."

When you awoke from your terrible black sleep, it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

The celebration Feast was a trial to me, Frodo. They wouldn't let me serve you, as I ought, but made me sit with all the great lords and ladies and Elves. Elves! All my life I had wanted to see Elves, and now I was surrounded by them and all I could see was you.

I was so frightened at the Council. The terrible stories of Kings and wizards and Dark Lords and Black Riders went on and on. All I could think was, "We're safe here. We've brought the Ring this far. Now we can go home and let these great lords and ladies take care of this as is their right." Then, slicing through my woolly-headedness, was your voice. "I will take the Ring to Mordor," you said, "though I do not know the way."

My heart stopped, but not my feet. I had been sitting in the corner, hoping no one would notice me and tell me to leave, but at that my feet moved without my knowing it, seemingly. "Mr. Frodo's not going anywhere without me!" I heard myself say, and knew it to be nothing less than the truth. You weren't going anywhere without me. Not never again.

That night we weren't sleepy after supper, understandably enough, and you suggested we take a walk in the woods of Rivendell, just you and I. I couldn't think of anything in Middle Earth I wanted more. As we walked I felt my heart swelling and swelling like to split my jerkin. My ears were humming so I couldn't hear a thing until I heard a voice. "I want to kiss you," it said. And I hardly had time to realize it was my own voice speaking before you leapt on me. We tumbled to the ground, and I was horrified, thinking I had mortally offended you, but then I saw your eyes.

Did I say your eyes were bright the day I met you? That night in Rivendell they were blazing brighter than a harvest bonfire, and even a ninnyhammer like myself couldn't miss the invitation in them. My breath had been knocked out when you fell on me, and looking at those eyes didn't make breathing no easier. But that was nothing to what happened to my breath when you bent your head and you kissed me.

Tonight, all this long and terrible time later, I can still taste your mouth, sweeter than August plums, headier than the Green Dragon's best ale. I can remember every second, every touch of that night, but I couldn't for the life of me say how we got our clothes off. All I knew was that we were naked and you were in my arms and your skin was pressed against mine and now I could die, it was alright now, this was all I had ever wanted.

Not for you, though. You wanted more, and soon took it as was your right. Afterwards, we both wept. It had never come on me like that, not at all, not with any of the games I had played in Hobbiton. I knew then that you were the only one, the only one for me, the only one I could ever belong to.

But tonight, Strider kissed me.

Nay, he didn't kiss me. _I_ kissed _him_. He left the choice to me, and I kissed him -- Strider, of all people! And not Strider, truth to tell, but the King Elessar! and wouldn't my Gaffer have a thing or two to say about _that_. He often warned me I'd come to a bad end, but even he couldn't have guessed such an end like that.

Tell true, Samwise Gamgee. He stirred you. His lips are soft, and his mouth is sweet, and the scrape of a bearded chin was unfamiliar and wonderfully exciting.

I never thought, never, that I could be truly stirred by another.

It's a relief, in a way. I can't deny that I've worried. The Ringspell was sucking love from your heart, and your sickness has changed you. I worried. If he cannot be yours, Sam, who is there for you? No one.

So, yes, it's a relief to know that, if it comes to that, maybe I can love another.

But it's a torment too.

Since I was nine years old I've known that my heart belonged only to you. From the time my body began to recognize you, I knew that you held the only key to unlock its miracles. Now, I have to face the knowledge that mayhaps that lock isn't so choosy like I thought it was. An uncomfortable thought.

Yet maybe not. Maybe it's like the difference between apples in March and apples in September. In March the apples are the only fruit left after the winter, and one needn't bother oneself wishing and hoping for peaches and plums. But in September, with all the trees heavy-laden, I can walk through the orchard, see all the fruit glowing in the sun, and choose for myself the reddest, sweetest apple.

I had thought you were my fate, my destiny. Mayhaps you are, but now I know you are also my choice. Having tasted the sweetness of other fruit, I choose you.

* * *

I'm so deep in these thoughts that I don't hear you at the door; my first hint that you're here is a feather-kiss under my ear. Such a tiny touch, but, as always, it completes me, makes me whole.

I smile and reach for you. You give a sigh of contentment as I draw you onto my lap. These big carved chairs in the King's house are far too large for a hobbit but, especially with a bolster, they're sized just right for two.

You melt into my lap, every curve fitting perfectly. Your arms are around my waist, your head on my chest. I can smell wind in your soft dark curls, and I brush my lips across their tangles. Nuzzling like a newborn lamb at its mother's coat, I follow with my lips the line of your hair down to the delicious point of your ear. There I halt awhile, nibbling, suckling the earlobe, tickling the tender spot behind your ear. You squirm in my lap, knowing what your squirming is doing to that selfsame lap, and your face turns up to mine like a flower to the sun. I plunge recklessly into the bottomless blue, feel it close over my head. I could drown here.

Unable to bear the brightness of your eyes, I gently press my lips over them, and they close softly, sweetly. Released, I can now begin to explore. I press the softest kisses at the very corner of your mouth, focusing all on that tiny point of joining. Your breathing deepens. The miracle is happening again.

Holding you cradled in my left arm, I can unbutton the fine linen shirt. Satiny skin, scored by knife, sting, and lash. I run my tongue along each scar that marks but can never mar your beauty. My lips close around a nipple, suckling, scraping softly with my teeth. A long murmur flutters from your lips, and I smile. I kiss each shoulder as I slide the soft linen shirt off and let it drop to the floor. You shiver a little; not with cold.

Now my mouth can return to yours, and at last I kiss you full on the lips. My tongue tastes the roof of your mouth, and you groan. The sound echoes deep in the pit of my belly. I let my fingers plunge into your curls, feeling their softness feather my wrists like a baby bird fallen from its nest, thumbs stroking behind pointed ears, palms cupping your head as if you were but a babe. Your arms curve under mine, and up to clasp my shoulders, where your fingers cling.

When the kiss breaks, your eyes are so close that I can't but plunge in again, dissolve in them. You are smiling. "You taste of pipeweed," you murmur.

"Aye, I was sitting with Strider after supper," I say.

end

> _Whatever you fear_   
>  _Whatever you hide_   
>  _Whatever you carry deep inside_   
>  _There's something more than this_   
>  _Whatever you love_   
>  _Whatever you give_   
>  _Whatever you think you need to live_   
>  _There's something more than this_
> 
> _In the shadow cast as you were leaving In the beauty of the ending day_   
>  _There is always something to believe in Something as I watch you slip away_
> 
> October Project Something More than This


End file.
